In the Op/Ed section of the Springfield paper recently, someone was refuting another?s use of the Bible as proof of their point stating that the Bible, in areas of science, is insufficient evidence. Part of the argument was that the Bible declares that the Earth is flat, and scientists endured great hardship, particularly on behalf of the religious element, to prove that it was in fact spherical.

The truth is, the Bible does not say that the Earth is flat. On the contrary, in Isa. 40:22, the Bible says that God sits "on the circle of the earth," indicating that it is not flat.

The idea that the Bible described the Earth as flat is most likely the result of a misinterpretation of biblical terms, such as "four corners of the earth," and "face of the earth." Incidentally, we still use "the face of the earth," meaning by this phrase "the surface of the earth."

It is the other statement, however, that I would like to emphasize. Did you know that the Earth does have four corners? Of course, it doesn?t have four corners like a flat sheet of paper, but four corners nonetheless. This has been scientifically proven as the following article shows, published under the above headline in the Science News Letter, June 19, 1965:

The Earth has four corners, measurements made of earth-circling satellites have shown.

The high points each cover several thousand square miles of the earth?s surface. They are 220 feet higher that they would be if the earth were exactly spherical.

The low areas between the high points are about 253 feet below what would be expected if the world were precisely round. The four-cornered, or pyramid-like, design was found by calculating the changes in the orbits of globe-girdling satellites.

At the center of the high points, the satellites were pulled downward a few hundred feet by the unexpectedly high gravity.

The new findings give the earth four known superimposed shapes:

1. It bulges at the equator, as has been known for a long time.

2. It is slightly pear-shaped, with the narrow end in the Arctic and the broad base in the Antarctic.

3. The earth?s equator is egg-shaped, not circular.

4. It has four high points, roughly of pyramid shape.

One of the earth?s high points centers over Ireland in the Northern Hemisphere and sprawls northward toward the pole. Another extends across the equator from New Guinea northward toward Japan. A third corner is south of Africa centered about half-way to Antarctica, and the fourth corner of the pyramid is west of South America, with the high point off Peru.

The new figure for the earth was found by scientists at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Silver Spring, Md., working under contract for the U.S. Navy?s Bureau of Naval Weapons. Dr. Robert R. Newton, with Drs. William H Guier and George C. Weiffenbach, directed the studies.

Ever since Magellan proved that the earth is round, scientists have been trying to prove that he was wrong. Although they have been successful, the imperfections from a sphere are minor considering the earth?s vast size, nearly 25,000 miles around the equator, with an area of nearly 197 million square miles.

? Science News Letter, 87:390 June 19, 1965

Once again science proves the Bible to be right. And once again, the error of the ?flat-earth doctrine? was the result of a misinterpretation on the part of the readers, and not the fault of God?s Word.